


take a moment to ask yourself if this is how we fall apart

by mermistia



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Autistic Max, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Panic Attacks, Sensory Overload, because im autistic and i say so, dadvid, max’s parents aren’t in it they’re just mentioned, sort of implied emotional/physical abuse to max ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 11:18:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermistia/pseuds/mermistia
Summary: Everything is too much.Max is struggling to cope.





	take a moment to ask yourself if this is how we fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> catch me projecting all of my mental health issues and family issues onto max like a cool kid

Max has his eyes closed. 

He likes it better that way. 

It tends to get too much otherwise, the noises and the feelings and all of the different colours around him. Sometimes he just likes it better when he can’t see. He can’t see the grass or the tents or the camp or the trees or himself or anything, and it’s just so much better. 

He paces across the grass, soft, quiet, light steps, trying his hardest to make sure no one hears him. Usually he wouldn’t really mind the other campers being near him; they’re good for entertainment at the very least, but not right now. The sun is beating down on him and he plays with the hem of his hoodie, lifting it up and flapping it down against his chest to create a small cool breeze. He knows it isn’t really practical to wear a hoodie in summer, especially when at a camp that’s as active and activity-filled as Camp Campbell, but it just makes him feel safe. He doesn’t know how to explain the feeling; it isn’t like it reminds him of home, because his home has never had any sort of safe feeling. It’s just something warm and familiar and soft, and he scrunches up his neck and buries his face into it as he wrings his hands. 

He mumbles to himself, broken and angry words. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

_Calm, calm, calm._

It’s just so much. He isn’t even sure what’s happened, really. He doesn’t think he could explain why he’s so distressed even if he tried. All he knows is that it’s so _much,_ so much pressure and noise and light and sound, and he saw a spider in his tent, and that was the push that sent all of the dominos in his mind tumbling and crashing down. 

But he won’t cry. 

He won’t let himself. He never cries, never never never never

n  
e  
v  
e  
r

He hates it. It’s weak, and he hates it, and his parents hate it, so he _won’t_ let himself cry. Except he already is. 

He doesn’t even notice at first, too busy pacing to pay attention to the hot tears spilling over his cheeks, and it isn’t painful until he becomes aware of it. Until he notices, and he presses his hands against his eyes to stop the flow, and his eyes begin to burn and his throat closes up and he chokes on nothing and everything all at once. 

It _hurts._ He’s breathing fast and shallow and hard, and it hurts, catching in his chest and making him gasp for breaths of the fresh air that’s somehow all around him and nowhere to be found. He can hear splashes in the lake, screams of joy and terror from the campers, a thousand sounds of nature from the woods, and it’s too much. He’s never liked too much noise, not unless it’s noise that he can make stop when he needs it to, and this is way beyond his control. 

He doesn’t like things being out of his control. 

But he doesn’t really like everything being in his control either. Too much pressure. He gets asked questions that he doesn’t know the answer to. He’s a child, he can’t know everything, but when things are in his control it’s like he’s expected to. Like he’s expected to fix everything, to solve everything, to be the hero and the mediator and be in the middle of everything. To fix his family, his life, his everything, his parents, his family, his family, his family. 

Are they even really a family? 

He doesn’t really know anymore. 

He doesn’t think so. 

It’s too late for them to be a family now. They’re too broken. They’re too far apart. There’s been too many grabbed wrists and angry words and broken tables and slammed doors for them to go back now. 

That’s why he doesn’t like loud noises, he supposes. It’s always a violent throwback to the noise of his house, the screams so loud and so angry that they leave mouths with trails of spit, the doors thrown shut so hard that the whole house shakes, and the times that he’s curled up in a ball on the floor, hugging himself tight and praying to every force possible for the fighting to stop, god, _please make it stop._

He presses his hands over his ears, sliding to the ground and rocking back and forth. He keeps his eyes closed, but it doesn’t stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks as he presses harder and harder against his head, pushing into the skin and gripping his hair between his fingers so tight that he feels it start to leave his scalp. He hates having these meltdowns, hates hurting himself, hates remembering everything, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. 

He’s used to it now. 

Pulling his hair doesn’t hurt anymore. 

Raking his nails across his skin doesn’t hurt anymore. 

So he just sits there, shaking, opening his mouth to scream silently, taking a single hand away from his head to punch the grass with all of the force he can manage. He hits and hits and hits until his fist can’t bear to come into contact with another thing. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and draws his hand close to his chest. His knees rise up to his body, and he buries his face forwards into them, letting his other hand drop to the ground and pull out fistfuls of grass, letting them go and blow away in the wind before grabbing another handful. 

He doesn’t notice the person standing over him until they speak, and even then he doesn’t look up. 

“Oh, Max, you shouldn’t do that to the grass, you know!”

It’s David. Of _course_ it’s David, because of course someone needs to see him in this state. Of course David has to see him so broken, with fistfuls of grass and a tear-stained face and a snotty nose and faint clumps of hair littering the ground around him. 

Of  
Fucking  
Course.

He pulls his knees up tighter to his chest, wrapping his arms around them to sturdy himself, and squeezes his eyes further shut. He doesn’t want to reply. He doesn’t want to speak, to hear about how he shouldn’t harm nature, to hear the wonderful incredible amazing facts that David has about grass, so he just takes in a shuddering breath and curls himself into a smaller ball. 

Maybe he’ll become invisible. 

Maybe the ground will open up and swallow him whole. 

Probably not, he knows, but he can always hope. 

“Hey, are you okay?” David’s voice is soft. Too soft, too sickly sweet and using that special tone of voice that Max is far too used to. His parents never asked if he was okay, softly or otherwise, but he doesn’t have even nearly enough fingers to count the amount of teachers that he’s heard that question from. 

_Are you okay?_

_Oh, sweetie, are you okay?_

He hates it. It’s an impossible to answer question, and it’s one that’s always asked in that sugary soft tone of voice, like he’s a baby, like he’s not had to grow up fast, so fast, way too fast. 

He knows he’s a child but _god,_ he’s getting really sick of being spoken to like he’s five. 

He wants to say yes. 

He wants to say yes, and he wants it to be true, because then he’ll be happy, and David will be happy, and everything will be perfect. 

He can’t make everything perfect. 

He’s tried. It never works. 

He isn’t perfect. 

He’s broken. 

“Jesus, David, do I fucking look like I’m okay?” He doesn’t even want to swear, not really, but it’s a part of his personality now so he figures he might as well. 

He can almost hear the gears turning in David’s head as he tries to work out what to say. “Well, no.” Is what David seems to finally settle on, softly kicking a pebble at his feet forwards a few centimetres. 

Max snorts. “Exactly,” he says, and his voice slurs it into what he isn’t even sure is a word. David probably didn’t understand him, but honestly he’s too tired to care or repeat himself, so he just takes in a breath and lets the silence between them continue to hang in the air. 

“Can I sit with you?” He hears David ask, and subtly peeks over his knees to see David fumbling awkwardly with his hands, squinting up at the sun, across at the forest, down at the grass, like he’s determined to look anywhere else other than at Max. 

Max appreciates it, strangely enough. 

“Sure,” he says, and nods his head slightly to the side. David takes a seat cross-legged in the grass next to him, and it’s awkward. Max was expecting that. David wasn’t though, it seems, and he starts to glance over at Max and then immediately looks away, like he’s afraid of being caught. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” David says, and Max gives his head the smallest shake. 

“No,” he says, and bites furiously on his lip. He’s still half expecting David to shout, to get angry at him for crying, to tell him that he’s making it all up, that there’s nothing wrong, that all of the things happening in his brain aren’t really there. That this is all just for attention. But the anger doesn’t come. 

“Okay,” David says, and goes quiet for a second, as if he’s planning what to say next. “Would you like a hug?”

Max freezes. He looks up at David slightly incredulously, narrowing his eyes. “Uh- no.”

“Okay,” David says again, and they settle into a comfortable silence, and Max counts the seconds in his head as the minutes pass,

One

Two

Three.

He leans into David. Only a little, only lightly, but the contact lets his brain relax just a little. It’s strange at first, and David doesn’t react for the first few seconds, until Max feels an arm gently wrap around his shoulder, secure and a pressure on his arm that he isn’t sure he really wants. 

“Is that alright?” David asks, and Max looks up to see him nod to the arm around his shoulder. 

Yet again, he wants to say yes.

He wants it to be alright. 

He wants to be alright. 

But maybe he shouldn’t lie. 

“No,” he says softly, and breathes out a sigh of relief when David immediately retracts his arm. He shrugs his shoulder a little, to get rid of the remaining, lingering feelings of contact, and leans a little further into David’s body. “This is alright,” he murmurs, tucking his head against David’s side. “Just no arm.”

“Okay,” David says, and gives him a warm smile, and Max feels his heart melt just a little. He hates to say that David has grown on him, more than he cares to admit. He still remembers their first meeting at the beginning of the summer, sunshine filled smiles and muttered words of contempt, which he supposes honestly isn’t really that much different from the relationship they have now. 

Somehow, though, it still feels different. 

It’s like they’ve grown. 

It’s like he’s grown. 

That’s new. 

He’s never grown before. He’s never had room to grow before. 

His breathing starts to slow and fall in time with David’s, and he closes his eyes again. Softly this time, letting them flutter closed with no anger or pain or heartbreak, and lets thoughts and memories that he never thought he’d have begin to fill his head. 

His parents, the lights, the noises, the overwhelming intensity of everything is still there in his brain, lingering at the back of his mind, but he pushes it as far back as he can and hums his song under his breath. 

A song that he found so long ago. 

He doesn’t even really remember when, he can’t remember the exact date, but it’s always helped him. Like his hoodie, he doesn’t know what it is about it, but it’s safe. There’s no lyrics, just music, and it’s the softest song he’s ever heard. 

He always remembers it in times like these. 

It’s something he likes to remember. 

“Thank you,” he says, an interruption to the memory of music, and swallows nothing. He rubs his eyes, clearing away the tears, and blinks blearily up at David. “For this.” 

“No problem, Max,” David’s eyes close. “I’m here for you.”

Max lets himself fully relax, finally, closes his eyes, and lets his song start again in his mind. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> so like,, pain 
> 
> also i didn’t proofread this bc. im gay im not sensible so if there’s typos then PLEASE kill me 
> 
> anyway as per usual here’s my useless shoutout to myself so im @mermista on tumblr.hellsite


End file.
